A blog by Luke Akehurst about politics, elections, and the Labour Party - With subtitles for the Hard of Left.
Just for the record: all the views expressed here are entirely personal and do not necessarily represent the positions of any organisations I am a member of.

Monday, September 01, 2008

"Socialist Unity"

Initially on seeing the illustration morphing of the Labour Rose into a swastika, and the quote from Mussolini used to illustrate a piece about the Labour Party, I assumed the post was the work of someone fairly marginal and extreme - depiction of social democrats as being analogous with Nazis and fascists having been a feature of high Stalinism in the early '30s when the Comintern decreed that centre-left parties were "social fascists". Historically this kind of behaviour accelerated Hitler's rise to power as it meant the KPD (German Communists) spent time and energy attacking the SPD (Social Democrats) instead of the Nazis.

7 Comments:

I don't like the Labour Party, but using Nazi imagery to criticise them is both absurd and reprehensible. It shows that the author has no idea what the Nazis stood for and so is happy to devalue the revulsion they should engender in order to make a cheap political point.

Well, the extension of the state's intervention in the rights of the citizen, the extraordinary taxation on the citizen, the engagement in war with no justification, engagement in lies and deceit to disguise the real economy catastrophe and win elections ... I could go on.

"It should be noted that Derek Wall, despite being a radical left-wing ecosocialist, teaches at a private sixth form college."

Personally I would never do something like this, but I think at the same time that you can't really blame people for acting in a rationally selfish way in an irrationally selfish system.

Many of those within Labour who criticise this kind of thing are also hypocrites.. those who would criticise those who send their kinds to public schools, or teach in them, but would vote against abolishing them... are just as two faced as those who would do the reverse.

(Pray tell us Luke,was it Kings School or Kent College, both @ Canterbury).

(Tho too be fair as a sufferer of one of those two schools mentioned above I can happily say it taught me how to hit low and hard, and lie with a straight face)

But "Fuck off anonymous @ 3:56pm." I can concur, in fact I would put down the tosser who put up the original post, as completley not understanding the principles of the facists - That is, substitute violence for arguments.

Or in words anon might possibly understand - The Labour Party does not substitute a bit of 4 x 2 across the knee caps or ' naughty bits ! for logical arguent.

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About Me

Labour Party activist since 1988 - firmly on the moderate wing of the party. Member of Labour’s NEC 2010-2012. National Secretary of Labour Students 1995-6. Parliamentary candidate for Aldershot (2001) and Castle Point (2005). Hackney Councillor (Chatham Ward) 2002-2014, Labour Group Chief Whip 2002-09, Chair of Health Scrutiny 2010-2014. Supporter of Europe, NATO/nuclear deterrence, Israel, electoral reform. Guardian reader. Dad. Oxford resident. Unite union member. Employment history as a Labour Party Organiser, Local Government Political Assistant, Director at a Public Affairs company. All views expressed in a personal capacity. The rest will become evident from reading the blog.